It is the week of my book release! I am SO EXCITED! Several of you have already pre-ordered and are anxiously awaiting holding this beautiful novel in your hands later this week. Some are waiting to order until the 1st or after, and that is completely fine, too. If you would rather try to win a copy, here's your chance. I'm doing a giveaway in conjunction with my release this week. Click below and follow the instructions to get up to 6 entries. Want to know a secret? One of the ways to get entries is to click through that tab and follow it back to this blog. I know. It's a bit round-a-bout, but it's the way things are done. Anyway, once you click back to this blog post through the giveaway button, leave a comment. I want to know what your favorite smoothie flavor is. My main character, Jessica, loves chocolate! And so do I. :-)
​Good luck!

I am having a launch party for my book this Saturday over on Facebook. If you go through my Facebook page, you can find the link for the party under the "Events" tab. Please come join us. I'll be giving away door prizes at the end of the day as well as giving you sneak peeks into the lives of my characters and my life, too. It should be a fun time for all. It's also a great chance for you to ask questions!

Check this out! I am actually on Amazon!

I really do have tons of good intentions of posting on here more often. However, I tend to let life take over and I don't get everything done I mean to. Not in this part or the part that includes all the dishes sitting in my kitchen sink. Ha! That aside, I thought I'd share some with you about a few of the writing things I've been up to lately.
When I started considering becoming an author, I didn't have a problem with the writing part. I always have story ideas floating around in my head. And I even find time every now and then to sit down and put put words down where other people can read them. The part I had no idea was going to throw me a curve ball was after the book was on its way to the printer, so to speak. I'm talking marketing. I was an English major. I didn't take any business classes. Needless to say, looking into all the ways to market my book has been a whole new world for me. Who knows? Maybe someday I'll have a character who works in that field! Or not. We'll see. But it's definitely taken up more of my time lately than I expected.
Another thing that has taken up the few moments of quiet time I get each day when children are in bed is editing. I'm not still editing the book coming out next month. No. I have five or six manuscripts I've written in the past that have just been sitting on my computer, waiting for me to do something with them. Now that I've gotten a slight taste of what it's like to have a book "come to life," I want to do it again. So, I picked up one of those old stories and have been meticulously picking it apart, trying to make it so much better. I think I have made it better, but I'll probably go through it at least one more time before I attempt to send it to any publishers. I learned so much going through this book that's about to be available to you, and I'm trying to remember everything and apply it to my other stories as well. This should be easier as we go since I'll be actually writing things correctly from here on out ... as much as possible.
The reason I've been forcing myself to work so hard on edits is because next month I plan to write another book. Yes. You read that correctly. I participate in nanowrimo.org almost every year. Go look it up. It's really cool. To sum it up succinctly, it's basically giving myself the goal of writing 50000+ words in the 30 days of November. I have no idea why they picked one of the busiest months of the year, but they did, and I have "won" at achieving the goal several times now. It's a great way to keep myself motivated to get those words on the page. Want to know what this year's story is about? A boy and a girl and a whole lot of letter-writing. No more for now, but I'm calling it in my head "An Old-School Romance."
So, as you can see, even though I don't always get on here to post, I am still working on things that require writing. And here's hoping we can all enjoy these efforts in the future!